In The Flow of Time – June 24, 2024
Reading goes on about life in New Orleans in the first half of the 1800s. I run across this, along with other references to the yellows.
“Numerous accounts praised the astounding beauty of the “high yellow”-skinned mulatto and quadroon women acting and dressed like queens.”
The use of the word “yellow” as a racial reference has become pejorative. The term references lighter-skinned people of African descent, typically mixed race. It was widespread in the 1800s and into the 1900s. I’m going to have to deal with words for skin color.
By complete coincidence, an agent at the Writers League of Texas conference I attended this past weekend referenced a novel, “The Yellow Wife,” an historical fiction novel about a slave woman’s fight for freedom.
It turns out, that famous Texas ballad, The Yellow Rose of Texas, is about a free woman of color, a “yellow.” Some of this is lost to legend, but her name was Emily Morgan.
Here is the oldest lyrics, long ago sanitized by racists to eliminate the suggestion of race.
the sweetest girl of color this darky ever knew
became
the sweetest little rosebud that Texas ever knew
If you want to dive in, like I do, see https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/yellow-rose-of-texas
